NI Noire -- My Best Settings So Far

HZPiano · 2022-02-05T12:15:29+00:00

Hello, After a year of being curious about NI Noire, I finally bought a license in last Black Friday's sale. On first installation and trial I was shocked -- and not in a good way. I reckoned Noire to be an immediate write-off and was disgruntled to say the least. What kept puzzling me though were the examples I heard on YouTube, in particular the few by @Gamma1734, which sounded rather acceptable, interesting, and enjoyable to me. This notion kept haunting me and got me trying to create a natural-piano preset from scratch several times over. Although I am not 100% satisfied yet -- and that in particular concerns the (subtle) timbre in the middle two octaves (actually from middle-C two octaves upwards) which could be just a tad fresher, crisper, and rounder to my ears -- I thought to share my current preset anyway to hopefully help and inspire others. For there are a lot of people unhappy about, and frustratingly struggling with, Noire. So here goes. Inital notes: I use the free Kontakt player; ❗ Anything I don't mention in this post, is left at the default setting -- either in the Kontakt player or in the Noire instrument itself; I do not discuss the MIDI in routing nor Audio out routing; these of course depend largely on your own system. 1. Volume settings Master volume 0.00 Instrument volume -6.0 2. Velocity curve This is to be found behind the 'KSP' button in the Kontakt player, and is not part of Noire itself. In my mind, it is essential to use this curve editor, not the rather primitive option list in Noire itself. The curve example shown here is set for the MIDI input from my Roland FP-10 (at its default/linear 'touch' setting). The 'Shelf' curve type is actually an S-shape, which I changed as follows: Shape 18 Min velocity 8 Using the right mouse button, I drew a straight line for the part that now shows linear; that line essentially cuts off everything above it (the left convex part of the S, so to speak) Velocity 0 (the leftmost curve column) is then set to output as 0 Velocity 1 (the next-to-leftmost curve column) is then set to output as 1 (with the silent strike on velocity 1 in mind) 3. NOIRE Pure and Basic Pure My preset build starts with NOIRE Pure (as opposed to FELT), and then uses the Basic Pure as the starting point 4. Piano shaping ANATOMY Release samples ON -15.0 Resonance Pedal -6.0 Overtones ON -39.0 NOISES Pedal ON -27.0 -> Rumble -15.0 -> Damper -24.0 -> Strings -24.0 TONE Low keys +5 SETTINGS Velocity Linear Silent key ON Repedal ON Half pedal ON 5. FX EQ Presence +6.0 6. Kontakt Player Output EQ Type Solid G-EQ LMF Gain -6.0 dB / 349.0 Hz So here it is. Of course everything is "to taste", but I hope this gets you too on your way to a more satisfactory sounding Noire, from the perspective of a natural piano. Whether that actually resembles a Yamaha CFX? Who knows. A last tip: When you have everything set as you like it, you can save the whole thing as a 'Multi' under the floppy disk icon in the upper left of the Kontakt player. After that, double-clicking on the saved file or on a shortcut to that file, will launch Kontakt player with everything set to go. Do you have an even better fine-tuning? Let us know! Cheers and happy playing, HZ

HZPiano

David B I might be interested. Let me sleep on it and I'll get back to you, ok?

Cheers,

vagfilm

Nice dreams HZPiano... I think you will like Ravenscroft 😇

HZPiano

vagfilm 😄

David B

I've been watching Youtube Noire videos and stumbled across this fine artist. I love this guy's compositions. And the Noire sounds pretty good.

God Bless,
David

David B

More Noire fun with YouTuber "In The Mix." More improvisations (that's what he calls them).

God Bless,
David

David B

I'm enjoying the Noire. Thanks to HZPiano for trading me his Noire for my Ravenscroft/True Keys package.

Some recordings will be forthcoming after I dial it in a bit.

God Bless,
David

HZPiano

David B Thanks to HZPiano for trading

Thanks to you as well, David. We did a nice bit of teamwork this week, even while being some 5,500 miles apart. Enjoyed the process 🙂.

Cheers and happy playing,

PS I might miss my Noire, time will tell, but then I can always get it again in a sale.

HZPiano

vagfilm Nice dreams HZPiano... I think you will like Ravenscroft 😇

As for this afternoon, I do 😉.

Cheers and happy playing,

TomLC

Nice sounding piano, David.

JosephW

@HZPiano @David B where exactly can I find and access the 6. Kontakt Player Output EQ settings ?

I feel quite silly that I haven't been able to find it. Thank you in advance!!

HZPiano

JosephW I feel quite silly that I haven't been able to find it.

The Kontakt user interface is often counterintuitive, so nothing to feel silly about!

In the top bar you see a floppy disk icon, cog wheel icon, and then an icon that resembles tiles. If you click that one, you can toggle more windows to be displayed, amongst those the window where you can set up the output signal treatment (I don't remember what the window is actually called, but that'll probably be obvious).

Cheers and happy playing,

David B

JosephW

God Bless,
David

QuasiUnaFantasia

Kontakt 6 player has an equalizer? Well, well, you learn something new every day. 🙂

HZPiano

QuasiUnaFantasia Kontakt 6 player has an equalizer?

🙂 And more, in that same output window.

Cheers and happy discoveries,

JosephW

David B oh wow, thank you so much David!!

Ralphiano

Noire is currently on sale from NI at $74.50. It runs on the Kontakt Player, too.

There are several other packages on sale, as well.

HZPiano

Ralphiano ,

Thank you for spotting and relaying!

I'll have a look 🙂.

Cheers and happy playing,

David B

If you can live without proper pedaling, it's a great library. If repedaling is important to you, stay away.

God Bless,
David

it2piano

I know this thread isn't about the Felt piano settings but if anyone here can maybe give some hints and tips on how to get a similar sound to the neoclassical songs found on the Spotify piano playlists I would be very happy :-) .

Have tried to figure out what settings that is used but I still think my sound is more like a Wurlitzer piano than the sounds that I hear on those tracks. Here is the sound I'm looking for: Peaceful Piano

OlivierW

Here my Logic10 "Noire" optimised preset for YAMAHA N1X/MAC users and Pianoteq 8 owners 🇦

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/69ofco5tjhi9gblpeusy3/h?dl=0&rlkey=sfzvdy2kglh4263b6mimnv5bx

(Need MAC M1-M2 - Mx /LOGIC10/NOIRE/PIANOTEQ8/YAMAHA N1X)

Regards,

Olivier